


Learn to Feel Again

by SadRoebot



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Beast Island, F/F, Past Child Abuse, Post Season 3, Prison, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, redemption arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 01:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20752013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadRoebot/pseuds/SadRoebot
Summary: Catra made her choice, and now she must live with the consequences.





	Learn to Feel Again

**Author's Note:**

> I finally binged She-Ra about a week ago, and it's been in my head ever since, especially after that finale. I've never seen the original show, but I did some reading on what Beast Island was and it gave me the idea for this fic. I hope you enjoy. It's my first time publishing, so I'm a little nervous :)

The Horde’s headquarters stretched above the Fright Zone, groaning like a wounded giant, its skull smashed by a hammer. Lord Hordak's sanctum had collapsed, bringing a large section at the top of the tower along with it. Pieces of the outer wall crumbled and fell. The soldiers below dove for cover. Then everything settled, and the tower finally stood as a trophy of the Horde’s defeat. Another loss against the Princesses’ Rebellion. 

Catra’s loss. 

Entrapta had warned her. Adora had begged her. But Catra pulled the switch anyway. Now, she had to stand there, at the base of the tower, and bask in the damage she had caused. Soldiers and workers scattered like bees in a hive, everyone shouting, trying to figure out what had happened and what their orders were. Hordak stood close by, and Catra had never seen him so… shattered. His face sagged in a frown, with downcast eyes strangely brimming with despair. 

Catra didn’t know what to do. Chaos swirled around her, the air thick with the stench of oil, chemicals, and scorched metal. She was a Force Captain… or used to be. She should do something. Her foot eased back a step. Someone was organizing the soldiers into search parties—there could still be others trapped inside, a voice cried. Catra was hit by the sudden image of people caught in the rubble, beaten, bruised, bleeding… or worse. She took another step back. 

An engineer was organizing cleanup and repair teams. Her workers rushed to gather tools while her fingers danced along a hand terminal. An army of utility robots came rolling from a nearby structure at her beck and call. They went to work clearing the rubble from their immediate surroundings. 

_ Useless. _

Another step back, then another, until something hard and pointy jabbed Catra in the back. Scorpia. She looked down at Catra. There was no warmth in her gaze, no reverence. Just a sad, broken look. She didn’t say a word as she shuffled out of Catra’s way, then left to help the other Force Captains take charge. 

_ Worthless. _

Catra ran. 

Everything passed in a blur as she sprinted through the winding maze of pipes, then jumped and climbed among the fingers of metal stretching toward the sky. Alone. She needed to be alone. So she found herself curled up in a corner on a balcony somewhere, watching the sun creep toward the horizon. With her knees hugged close, her tail draped over her feet, the memories of that false reality came tumbling back. She remembered everything. 

It was just like old times: Adora by her side, laughing and smiling at her like Catra was the only person in the whole damn world that mattered. They had fun like they used to, and even after making a mess with Catra’s ration bar cake, Shadow Weaver hadn’t jumped down her throat. Instead, she touched her face gently, cleaned her mouth with a swipe of her thumb; and for the first time, Shadow Weaver spoke to Catra with love. She was proud of her. But it wasn’t real. 

Her true memories came trickling back, thanks to Adora. She remembered the betrayal, being abandoned by the one person who had always been there, the  _ one person  _ who had seemed to care. Tossed away like trash, replaced by  _ princesses.  _ Having a taste of what could have been, then having it ripped away so quickly, made the pain even worse, amplified it by a factor of ten. It was like having Adora leave her all over again. 

She remembered Shadow Weaver in the hall, using that sparkly brat as a living runestone to feed her magic—magic she then used on Catra. How could Adora have her on their side? Adora knew what Catra had been through, she knew what Shadow Weaver had done. She had seen Catra crying so many times, huddled on her bunk, in a storage closet, up on a roof. And she didn’t care. No one cared. 

So why should she care if the world collapsed into nothingness? No one on it was worth saving, not even herself. 

She could have died happy with her best friend by her side. They could have just… faded away. Erased. All the years of shit Catra had to endure could have been forgotten—but Adora had to go and ruin it all. 

Now Catra was left with the pieces, and a phantom pain in her jaw where Adora had punched her.  _ You made your choice. Now live with it!  _ Catra had never seen hate in those bright eyes, until today. When she pulled that switch, she cut whatever thread that was left between them. There was no going back now. Adora’s glare still burned in the back of Catra’s mind. It was a look that could kill. 

Watching the sun set, Catra ran her fingers through her mane, claws raking at her scalp. Her throat almost ripped in two as her scream echoed through the Fright Zone. 

A dark laugh. A corrupted voice that wasn’t her own: 

_ Your fault… _

***

_ She’s hurt. Badly. She knows it, but she doesn’t say anything—can’t say anything. She doesn’t want to look like a failure. Weak. So she sits and cries alone on the roof of the cadet training facility, squished between a wall and an air filter unit, where no one can find her.  _

_ But Adora does, as always. It’s like she can smell her from a mile away.  _

_ “Catra!” she says. She runs over, wide-eyed with panic. “There you are.” _

_ “Go away,” Catra mumbles, cradling her arm in her lap. She wipes her tears quickly, trying not to let Adora see, but of course she sees anyway. _

_ “What’s wrong?” Adora kneels in front of her, ponytail dancing in the breeze.  _

_ “Nothing.” _

_ “Then why are you crying?” _

_ “I’m not crying.” _

_ Adora furrows her brow. “It’s almost lunch time.” _

_ “I’m not hungry.” _

_ “You don’t have to come down,” Adora offers, confused, but still trying her best. “I can sneak some food up and we can eat here.” _

_ “No.” Catra shakes her head, and her hair falls in her face. “You’ll just get caught, and I’ll get in trouble.” _

_ “Why would you get in trouble?” _

_ Catra sighs. Adora doesn’t understand.  _

_ “Catra, come on. Talk to me.” Then Adora puts her hand on Catra’s arm.  _

_ Catra screams, and knocks Adora’s hand away. Her breath hisses through her teeth as she shrinks further into the wall. It hurts It hurts It hurts! Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry. Not in front of Adora.  _

_ “You’re hurt,” Adora realizes. Her hand grazes Catra’s other arm in a comforting gesture. “What happened?” _

_ Catra says nothing.  _

_ “The course…” Adora trails off in thought, then she raises her brow. “When you fell? Why didn’t you say anything?” _

_ Because she can’t. Shadow Weaver would get upset. Just like last time Catra got herself hurt. It was her fault this time, though. She didn’t want to fall too far behind Adora’s time, but she couldn’t keep up. If the course had been only for agility and speed, Catra could have won, no problem; but they had obstacles in their path, puzzles to solve, enemies to fight. Catra made a reckless jump on the last leg of the course in a longshot attempt to beat Adora. She made the jump, but she landed wrong. The fall and the pain slowed her down, earning her second place anyway.  _

_ All that for nothing. _

_ “I don’t want Shadow Weaver to find out.”  _

_ Adora looks away for a moment, frowning, but she presses on. “You have to get checked out. We can go the nurse. I’m sure it’s not too bad, right?” She takes hold of Catra’s good hand.  _

_ But Catra isn’t so sure, because she can’t really move the other one.  _

_ “Come on,” Adora urges. “It’ll be worse if you don’t let someone look at it.” _

_ Silence passes between them, and with every second, Catra buckles more and more under Adora's stare, her pleading eyes. You know she's right, Catra thinks. Shadow Weaver would definitely notice if she couldn’t do something as simple as climbing the ropes during their warm-up tomorrow. She has no other choice.  _

_ “Fine.” _

_ Adora smiles and helps her up, careful not to touch her where she’s hurt. They go straight to the nurse; their lunch of gray ration bars can wait, Adora says. “I don’t like seeing you hurt.” _

_ Catra is told to sit still for the x-rays, but she can’t help but fidget, whimpering as the nurse shows her how to position her arm. But then Adora’s there, holding her hand, and it’s all a little easier. They sit close together as they wait for the results.  _

_ Broken, in two places.  _

_ Tears pool at the corners of Catra’s eyes as the nurse fixes her up with a splint until they can get the order for proper treatment. Shadow Weaver will find out. There’s no avoiding that now. Adora tells Catra she’s sorry and gives her a hug, and the nurse tells them to wait for a moment: a doctor will come along shortly. But when the doors open, it’s not a doctor in a white coat.  _

_ It’s Shadow Weaver, trailed by the curling shreds of her dark robe.  _

_ *** _

The soldiers found her sometime after dark. 

Catra looked up at the sound of footsteps to see three helmet faceplates, shimmering green. The faces behind them were blurred by the light of the moons. One of them stepped forward, and a woman’s voice called out to her through a helmet speaker. 

“Force Captain Catra.”

_"What?" _Catra snapped. What did she have to do for some peace and quiet?  _ Wait—Force Captain?  _

“Lord Hordak sent us to find you,” the soldier said. She tapped a few buttons on a hand terminal, then strapped it to her belt. “He wants to have a plan of attack to put into motion by morning, and he wants your input.” 

“He _ what? ”  _

“We’re supposed to bring you to the new temporary HQ. He’s waiting.”

Catra blinked, then scrubbed her eyes under the heels of her palms. _Force Captain… _Had she really been reinstated? Catra smiled. Of course she was. Hordak knew she was the his greatest asset. She had carried the Horde closer to victory than anyone before—closer than Shadow Weaver, closer than Entrapta. He wanted _her_ by his side. 

She stood and faced the soldiers. “Lead the way.” 

As they made it back to the ground, Catra noticed how the twisting paths of the Fight Zone had calmed to an eerie stillness. She must have been away for a few hours, at least. The towering monstrosity in the distance stood with a web of scaffolding and steel beams holding together the gaping hole at the top so no more of the building could crumble. The debris was mostly cleared: a lone robot rolled through, sweeping up what little remained. 

The soldiers turned a corner and led Catra to one of the Horde’s factories. The inside was massive, containing hundreds of drone rigs that pieced together the chassis and core engines of tanks and spider bots then lined them up on a belt, ready for transport to the next plant over for electrical work and armor plating.  A wide portion of the production floor was cleared to make room for a makeshift triage center. Dozens of cots were spread out along the ground, where medics went from soldier to soldier, checking their wounds, bandaging cuts, and setting broken bones. Catra’s ears twitched as screams bounced off the concrete walls and vaulted ceiling. 

That broken voice, laughing in her ear: 

_ You did this… _

Catra’s teeth clenched. She pulled her eyes away and kept them on the helmet of the soldier in front of her before she got the urge to rip a hole in something. They escorted her to a staircase that led to an upper level overlooking the factory. Hordak probably took the supervisor’s office as his new sanctum, and he probably wasn’t happy about it. 

_ Think, don’t get distracted.  _ She needed to come up with something to say to Hordak, a way to keep herself on his good side. A plan; that’s what he wanted. She needed a way to hurt the princesses. The full-on assault of Bright Moon was a failure, and even with the Whispering Woods still recovering, their spider bots had done little to wear the princesses down. Twice had they infiltrated the Fright Zone, and got away clean. That gave Catra two thoughts: 

One: They  _ really  _ needed to buff security around here. 

And Two: Why don’t they try to do the same as the princesses?

Adora and the rest had snuck in and stolen away their hostages the first time. Today it was the princesses who saved Adora. So why couldn’t Catra sneak into Bright Moon? She could use a diversion, then hit them from behind. Or maybe a night raid. A little bit of darkness had never held Catra back; her eyes were sharper than anyone’s.

Pieces were coming together in her head as she followed the soldiers through the upper offices. Then they stopped and took up positions on a door on their right. The woman waved her through. 

“Here.”

Catra went inside. The door closed behind her.

It wasn’t as grand and dark as the throne room: the office was nearly bare, with utilitarian furnishings that were limited to a simple desk, a couple cushionless chairs, and a standing lamp in the corner of the room. The lights buzzed in the sconces that dotted the ceiling; harsh and bright, they made Catra squint as she spotted the high-backed swivel chair that faced away from her, the streak of blue hair poked out above the top. The place looked more suited for a dweebish clerk who worked all day with numbers and reports—boring things, in other words. She imagined the chair spinning, and there in the seat would be Kyle. But when it did spin, it was the Lord of the Horde himself staring back at her with his glowing red eyes. 

“Force Captain Catra,” he said, his voice low and serious. He seemed to have his edge back after his look of defeat earlier. The winged imp curled up in his lap, nipping at a bandage on its arm. Hordak shut off the hand terminal he was holding and placed it on the desk, then petted the imp’s head gently as it chittered.

“Lord Hordak,” Catra said, then stopped in the center of the room. She forced an even expression, cool and collected. She was in control. Ready for anything, just as a Force Captain, and Hordak’s second-in-command, should be. 

“Nice of you to finally join us. We have much to discuss.”

“Right. We need a plan. A way to hurt the princesses where it hurts.” Catra began to wander the room, stopping to stare out the window at the triage below. “I was thinking we should strike back, the quicker the better. They won’t expect us to retaliate so soon. Let me sneak into Bright Moon, and I’ll bring back Adora and that stupid sword.”

“You want to sneak into the Queen’s palace and steal their greatest weapon out from under their noses?” Hordak scoffed, revealing a blood-red point of a fang. “How do you expect to succeed? They have Shadow Weaver on their side now… and Entrapta.”

Catra looked away from Hordak and watched a medic wrap a bandage around a soldier’s head.  _ Entrapta…  Why couldn’t she have just done what I asked?  _

“I dealt with Shadow Weaver once before, I can do it again,” Catra said with a toothy grin. “And this time, she doesn’t have her powers— _ we  _ have the Black Garnet. All we have to do is keep her separated from Bright Moon’s princess, and she’s done for.” The idea gave her chills. 

“And Entrapta? She-Ra?”

“Entrapta…? Well…” Catra sniffed. “She doesn’t have her lab, her First Ones tech, or her bots. All that stuff’s here. It took us forever to get all her junk the first time around, so it will be days,  _ weeks,  _ before she can build anything that could stop us.”

“You underestimate her,” Hordak said, but she ignored him. 

“And if we attack at night, Adora will be asleep. No She-Ra. If we find her room and hit there first, we can take She-Ra off the board for good. Adora’s useless without the sword.” 

Except, the phantom pain in her jaw, and an entire childhood of coming in second place, said otherwise. 

“Let me do this, Lord Hordak,” she said, looking him square in the eyes. 

A long moment passed in silence, then a grim smile crossed Hordak’s face. “Ever persistent, I’ll give you that. But I simply told the soldiers what I knew you needed to hear. When I said we had much to discuss, I wasn’t referring to a plan to attack the princesses; though, you  _ have _ given me an option to consider.”

"What?" The bravado on Catra’s face evaporated like acid rain. Her ears flattened. “Then… why am I here?”

Hordak reached across the desk and tapped a pointed finger to the surface of his hand terminal. The display lit up, and Hordak tapped a button on the screen. A voice crackled through the speakers. “Yes, Lord Hordak.”

“Send them in.”

The imp chittered, flew out of Hordak’s lap, and perched itself on the standing lamp in the corner. It stared at Catra with a mocking lift of its brow, then opened its mouth and spoke with Hordak’s voice. _"Pathetic."_

Catra spun around, a knot coiling in her stomach as she heard footsteps outside the door. It opened with a pneumatic hiss, and Scorpia stood in the doorway, pincers behind her back, face cold and expressionless. She stepped inside the room.

“Scorpia…?” Catra said, confused. “What—“

“Hi, Catra.” 

That nasally voice. 

_ No…  _

A mass of lavender-colored hair appeared from behind Scorpia. Still in her oil-stained lab clothes, Entrapta frowned at her.  _ Entrapta,  _ here in the Fright Zone—not on a transport to Beast Island. Catra’s heart dropped, her pulse spiked, and her claws reflexively extended. She looked at Scorpia, who quickly looked down at her feet. Her face lost its mask; her brows pinched with sadness, as if she’d just killed someone. 

And maybe she had. 

“Lord Hordak,” Catra tried to explain, fear building in her chest like water, threatening to drown her. But Hordak cut her off:

“Enough!” He rounded the desk and stepped up to her, eyes glowing brighter with his anger. “I gave you a second chance to prove your worth, and this is how you squander it?”

“She—She wouldn’t open the portal!” Catra backed away from him. “The princesses were coming and she wanted to give up. I had to—”

Hordak lashed out with the back of his hand, and Catra hit the floor. The pain came a few seconds later, blooming across her cheek like fire. 

"Scorpia and Entrapta told me everything," Hordak growled. "The world, reality itself, began to unravel—because of _you."_

“Oh yeah, it was  _ fascinating _ ,” Entrapta said, hair flowing around legs. “I just wish I could have collected some data while we were there.”

Catra managed to right herself onto her hands and knees. She looked at Scorpia through the fringe of hair in her face. “You told him…” She’d been betrayed, again, by someone who had called herself Catra’s  _ best friend.  _ Scorpia might as well have been holding the bloody knife in her hand, pulled from Catra’s back.

“She’s my friend too, Catra,” Scorpia said, voice heavy with guilt. She rubbed her pincers together anxiously. “I couldn’t let you send her away. She did nothing wrong.”

_ I didn’t make you pull the switch.  _

“No…,” Catra said through clenched teeth, claws tearing at the floor. She whipped her head toward Hordak, hair raising all across her body, tail lashing side-to-side. “You  _ need  _ me. You only got this far, because of  _ me!”  _

“And none of it would have mattered in the end.” Hordak looked at her like she was nothing, an insect he could squash under his boot. “Everything would have been lost because of your arrogance, your pride. You are a liability I can no longer afford.”

“No!” Catra screamed. She suddenly remembered the way it felt to have the oxygen sucked from the room, to gasp for breath, thinking she was about to die. Her vision blurred with tears. “I can stop the princesses, She-Ra.”

“You’ve already had your second chance. Force Captain Scorpia, remind me: what was the order Catra gave after she  _ shocked _ Entrapta unconscious?” 

Scorpia’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Sir, I don’t think—“

“Beast Island,” Entrapta said. “The horned lady told me I was supposed to go there when I woke up. But then Scorpia came. It sounded like a scary place.” She glanced at Catra, mouth twisting. She looked uncomfortable. Hurt. It was the same expression she made when she talked about the princesses, and how her best friends had left her behind. 

“Scary indeed.” Hordak smiled a red smile. “But I think Catra would be happy to take your place.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
